Bruce Taggart of KINBER

The Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research kicked off its second annual member meeting June 26 at the University Club at the University of Pittsburgh’s Oakland campus.

In March, the State College-based nonprofit, composed of education, health care and public media organizations, completed PennREN, a broadband network composed of 1,600 miles of fiber and network equipment to deliver services to unserved and underserved locations throughout the state. Funded largely by a $99.6 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the focus of KINBER moving forward is sustainability.

I spoke with Bruce Taggart, vice provost for library and technology services at Lehigh University and chair of the KINBER board, about what this opportunity means for Pennsylvania.

What benefits will Pennsylvania see from PennREN?

“The benefits will hopefully be a higher adoption of broadband service in some of the unserved and underserved populations, but we will also probably see advanced applications that will be developed over the next five to 10 years in the areas of education, health care and economic development. We have a tremendous asset now of fiber and broadband, and we’re hoping that in 2020 or 2025, when we look back at the applications that will be developed, that we can say, ‘I didn’t see that coming.’ If you look back 10 years ago, we didn’t have Facebook, we didn’t have Twitter, and as (New York Times columnist) Thomas Friedman said, Skype was just a typo. In 10 years, they transformed social media and communication throughout the entire world, so what is the next 10 years going to bring? We don’t know, but one thing is certain: They will all be needing broadband.”

Do you find that most people assume everyone has broadband access?

“There is a major misconception, since it seems that everyone has an iPhone or Android, that everyone is connected. A lot of us who are in the higher-ed area and in other sectors, we know there is a lot of unserved and underserved populations. But now that we have fiber close to those areas, one of our goals is to work with the last-mile connectors to bring it to K-12 and bring it to some of the more rural community colleges, because there are some major gaps in Pennsylvania, especially in the northern tier.”

Why the digital divide when it comes to broadband?

“The telecommunications industry really works on a principle of aggregate demand. If there is no aggregate demand in an area, they’re not really all that thrilled about going in there and building an infrastructure if they are not going to get a significant return on their investment. We’re changing that environment a bit because once you bring broadband and create services, people are more likely to maybe move to these rural areas or create another business there. This creates whole new economic opportunities in areas where their best days may have been in the past, but now they are being regentrified. … (Broadband) has become as essential as water and power for communities that want to grow and prosper.”

What has been the benefit of having education, health care and economic development organizations working collaboratively on this project?

“We are bringing together a broad cross-section of Pennsylvania to talk about issues and challenges, (including) the major research universities, health care leaders, economic development leaders (and) educators in the K-20 environment. For the first time, we are meeting at least twice a year to talk about the issues of how advanced networking and technology can enhance the delivery of various education and health care services to all Pennsylvanians.”

After spending three years building this network, what is next for KINBER and PennREN?

“Now we are at the point where we have to develop a sustainability model. We have the model, but now we have to fulfill the model. We have to actually bring in subscribing customers to PennREN. We have no other federal support or state support at this time, so we are working to get the word out that we are up and running and open for business. In the next year, we have contracts signed with Lehigh University, Bucknell University, the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, some community colleges and public media stations, so we are starting to get customers for our sustainability model. It’s my hope that these universities will use the service for collaborative big-data applications that can be leveraged for additional funding in the future.”